With cheers, honks and team spirit, an event on the steps of City Hall on Monday morning had all the hallmarks of a Spurs playoff win celebration.
San Antonio officials and members of the community raised a rainbow flag in honor of Pride Month, the annual observance dedicated to celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) culture, history and community.
For the month of June, the city’s Pride flag will wave from a pole high above the black-and-white banner celebrating the 2026 Western Conference Champions that hangs above the doorway to city hall.
“What a fun weekend — first, we’re all honking on Saturday, and now we’re here raising the Pride flag,” said Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7). “We want to continue that celebration. The fight is not done yet, and I know that together we will move this forward.”
It was the fifth year San Antonio has displayed the flag atop city hall but comes amid renewed calls for recognition and justice.
“It’s more than just the raise of a flag,” said Michael Rendon, chairman of the city’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, which helped organize the event.
“We raise visibility, pride, resilience and hope,” he said. “This moment is a reminder that LGBTQ+ people have always been a part of the story of San Antonio. We are your neighbors, your family, your coworkers, your faith leaders, your first responders, your artists, your educators, your advocates, and your city officials, and so much more.
“The Pride flag represents generations of people who have fought to be seen and heard.”
On Monday, they were seen and heard as Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, the city’s first openly gay mayor, and seven of the city’s 10 council members joined local business professionals, community advocates, mothers and sons and city staff in the celebration.
“I don’t take mornings like this in any way for granted,” Jones said. “As somebody that grew up on the far West Side of San Antonio, raised by a single mom, served under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and frankly, as we’re right across from San Fernando Cathedral, raised in a very Catholic household, but it was also that same Catholicism, frankly, that always showed me to lead and to treat everybody with dignity and with respect and with compassion.”
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1) announced that she will be filing a council consideration request for support to install a memorial along North Main Avenue. The memorial would honor Erica Andrews, a former drag queen who made a name for herself in San Antonio before her death in 2013.
North Main is the main byway of the city’s Pride Cultural Heritage District, established in 2025, and where rainbow crosswalks were removed by order of Gov. Greg Abbott in early 2025.
In response, the city painted the sidewalks.
“When the state said we’re going to regulate your streetways, we said, ‘OK, you can’t regulate our sidewalks,’” Kaur said. Now, “we have more ideas coming, because … we cannot stand still. We’ve got to continue progressing.”
Miriam Hunt, president of the nonprofit Fiesta Youth, which serves young adults and their families, attended the flag-raising with her teenage son.
“I just don’t want the community to be silenced or ignored or hidden,” she said. “I want to teach him it’s OK to be proud.”
At the event, Rendon also presented the mayor with a new banner — a Progress Pride flag that features a chevron arrow of colors placed over the classic rainbow to highlight the need for continued progression toward equity and representation.
“This flag represents our past generations — for the work that you’ve done, we honor you today,” he said. “This is a reminder that we’ve got to keep pushing, keep going. And for the next generation, our youth, it’s a reminder that we see you, we’re here for you, and you’re not alone.
“Happy Pride and go Spurs go!”
